Managers of pine plantations note that at various different age classes and after thinning, plantations are often heavily impacted by woody weed encroachment, primarily blackberry. They hypothesise that blackberry is a contributor of rate of spread and subsequent severity of fires. However, current fire behaviour models for pine plantations in Australia, do not incorporate woody weed encroachment, age class or management in their estimates of rate of spread within pine plantations. Therefore the aim of this project is to determine whether blackberry encroachment is a key driver of rate of spread for fires in pine plantations and whether it effects the severity of fires. We also aim to understand the effects of age class and management on fire spread and outcomes. we develop and test a random forest model for predicting the severity and rate of spread for fires with and without blackberry encroachment. We evaluate the importance of a range of environmental and climatic variables as key drivers of rate of spread and fire severity. We validate these models against an independent fire data set and compare outputs of this model for two fires in pine plantations to predictions for these fires made by the AFDRS. Outputs from this modelling could help inform improvements to fire behaviour modelling going forward.
Project timeline: 01/2024 – 05/2025